(Anonymous) Engineer Proposes A Full-Scale “USS Enterprise” That Can Be Built For $1 Trillion

Well, live long and prosper, then. As far as I know, there is only one space-faring vessel (yet) with the designation Enterprise. As James Holloway writes on GizMag:

An anonymous electrical and systems engineer going only by the moniker BTE-Dan has posted surprisingly detailed plans for a full-scale, functioning Starship Enterprise that he claims could be built in 20 years. Though it may be tempting to scoff at such lofty ambition, the Build the Enterprise website (up all of one week) includes specifications, costs, mission plan and funding strategies, all suggesting that a serious amount of thought has gone into creating a real world counterpart to the icon spaceship of the TV and movie series, Star Trek.

The project appears to be born of Dan’s frustration with humankind’s present spacefaring efforts. Dan more or less dismisses the International Space Station for its lack of gravity and cramped quarters, describing its toilet facilities as “comical and primitive,” and musing how the money may have been better spent. Dan’s answer? A full-scale USS Enterprise similar in form, dissimilar in function to that of the TV and movie series; that would operate as “a spaceship, a space station and a spaceport,” and be home to a thousand people….

I would rather spend a trillion dollars on Science than on blowing up brown people.

As for the ship itself, it would be ramshackle and dangerous at best. It would also be our first serious attempt at building such a thing. A little bit of beginners luck and some funding and we’ll be on Mars by 2069, just in time for Broseph McBuddy to say one small step for a man, and one giant leap for mankind and step onto another Planet.